We started the morning with breakfast and no coffee. Luckily I had my Via's with me. they only had tea at the Ryoken. After breakfast we visited a large temple complex in Nara called Kohfukuji Temple complex. There is a large 5 story pagoda at this temple complex, but much of it is under construction. The temple complex dates from 669 AD. It was relocated to it's present location in 710 AD. There is a beautiful museum that houses beautiful artifacts from the temple complex. It was built to deepen the viewers appreciation of Buddhism. At the temple complex there was a small memorial to children who have died. We watched a Japanese man worship there. They workshop there by dowsing the stature with water which is a symbol of purification. It was quite moving.
Shrine to children
From there we explored the streets of Nara a little bit. It's a small town and felt like an authentic Japanese town. We visited a historical merchant's house. It was interesting to see how real people would have lived 100 years ago.
Small Shinto shrine on the street
Typical Japanese house
Model merchant's house from 100 years ago
Lots of beautiful man hole covers in Nara.
Time to head back to Kyoto where we caught a bullet train to Tokyo. It took about 2 hours to travel to Tokyo from Kyoto. It was interesting to see the rice fields and the changing topography. We even got to see Mt. Fuji on the way.
Our hotel, the Royal Park Hotel Shiodome, had an amazing view of the city of Tokyo. Off to dinner at Dan, a local Kushiage dinner. It was a small restaurant that was closed for our dinner. Dinner consisted of many small plates of food fried in a breaking. It was pretty good, but definitely not the best dinner I've had so far. From there we scouted out a place for a nightcap. Everything is so small in Tokyo and many of the places were closed for private parties. We were finally successful with the help of our Japan profession, Elissa. The place we ended up had about 6 seats at the bar and 2 small tables. It was cozy, but interesting. The Japanese don't have much space to work with because of the topography of the area. They make the best of this by having restaurants and bars on all floors, sometimes 5 or more floors, of a building.
View of rice fields from the train
The Japanese people are also very polite and orderly. This is in sharp contrast to the Chinese. Getting on the trains in Japan is done in lines and you don't push. In China it was a free for all and if you don't push, you don't get on the train. Lots of bowing is done in Japan as well. Another interesting thing I learned about Japan is that once a woman has a child, she no longer works. There is very little childcare in Japan and it's looked down upon for women to work. As a result, the productivity in Japan is going down and the economy hasn't picked back up after the downturn in the 1990's and 2000's. The birth rate in Japan is also very low. 1.3 children per family, so Japan will face a crisis in the near future as the work force ages and there aren't enough young people to replace the workers.
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